From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the Daily.

Today, the president's border wall has stood as the ultimate symbol of a hard-line approach to immigration,

built on keeping people out.

So why, as Congress votes to end a shutdown, and take up the issue of immigration,

have Democrats suggested that if Republicans protect the dreamers, they would fund the wall.

It's Tuesday, January 23rd.

Julie, where does the idea of a border wall between the United States and Mexico come from?

Well, the idea of border security has been a part of the immigration conversation for a long time.

Julie Davis covers the White House for the times.

But for Donald Trump, he started actually thinking about this even before he decided to jump into the presidential race.

When a couple of his advisors said that they thought it would be good for him to start talking about the idea of a border wall.

You know, they talk about, oh, I don't know, how could we possibly build a fence that nobody can climb off?

I would build a border like you've never seen before. Nobody's climbing up.

And he started testing it out.

We have to build a fence.

Early in 2014, he said, something along the lines of, I would build a border fence like you've never seen before.

And the crowd liked it, and he got kind of a warm response.

The fences are easy, believe me.

But then he started actually talking about a wall.

And I would build a wall like nobody can build a wall. And nobody comes in illegally anymore.

When he started to talk about a wall and a strong wall, solid wall, he found it was even more powerful.

And it began to be a staple of all of his speeches to political audiences.

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